senile1

As for improvements, I can always be better at everything I do - even the small number of things I am good at. Perfection is an impossibility. Fishing is so much fun because we always see a challenge in the road ahead. There are a few items that I was going to spend some time on this year: Ned rigs, blade baits, drop shot . . . . . and I just added A-Jay's suggestion of using a craw on a drop shot.

I have had some success with it at Table Rock, though I would say it isn't as consistent as I would like. In the warmer months between the spawn and fall, Table Rock fish seem to suspend a lot, and dropping a spoon down on them has been a much more consistent option for me.

That's a very nice healthy 5'er. Congratulations!

That's awesome, Mike!

That sounds like a nice couple of days on the water. Best wishes to you and your wife during her ordeal.

Fishing is an activity that becomes who we are. I ripped the cartilage holding my ribs in place on the right side in mid-August. Casting hurt and handling my bass boat was almost impossible. Carrying or dragging the jon boat was completely out of the cards. Then, just as I was almost healed and was able to fish a bit, I re-injured them worse in early November. Ribs were getting hung on each other and I had a spot on the right side of my abdomen that was sticking out. Even light casting hurt. It seemed that my right rib cage was moving. If I laid on my back, it would move slightly forward. If, on my stomach it moved slightly backward. Every movement was painful. I've injured my ribs a few times in my life and the older I get, the easier it seems to tear the cartilage loose. Two different doctors told me that everything was in place but that I had extreme swelling. I had to relax and let the cartilage heal. I am just now feeling like I could fish. I plan to try working out again next week, but I am going to be very careful. So . . . . here it is mid-January, and I have only been able to fish three times since mid-August. I have the shakes, depression, and I am irritable. I wake up at night in cold sweats and can't get back to sleep. Seriously, though, the last five months have not been good. Fishing keeps me sane. I can't wait to get back on the water.

Tom, I am deeply sorry to hear about your brother. Hang in there, friend.

You are definitely on some very healthy bass specimens this Winter. What a wonderful lake.

Yep. Fat, awesome fish! That'll warm a winter day up for you.

Let me go back to the previous threads on this subject so I can make sure I give the same answer. Seriously, though, a jig is always my choice. However, you are asking me to narrow it down to a specific color and type of jig. That's a bit more precise. Since I can't have all of the jig heads that I prefer, I guess I would go with a green pumpkin half ounce arky head, to split the difference, with a green pumpkin RageTail DB Craw trailer and a Siebert's grasshopper skirt. It would be nice to have a black-blue jig and trailer along as well though if you would let me cheat a little.

Nice. You put an exclamation point on the end of the year.

Sweet fish! Put out the toad alert.

Awesome looking fish! Jermaine's was a tank, but yours was no slouch. With her length and the size of her mouth, it looks like she still has a few pounds to put on.

Those peacocks are beautiful! Congratulations on an awesome day! I obviously don't have an eye for peacock weight because I would have guessed a couple of them at more than 6 lbs. Having never fished for them, I think their shape throws me off on guessing the weight.

I'll add to the facts that Catt provided. The OP stated the following in an additional post: "The first day was cloudy with light winds, and the second(when they weren't taking it) was sunny with strong winds." Is it possible as Tom suggested in another post that a cold front came through, or maybe, as A-Jay suggested, the bass were sore-lipped? If so, did the OP change his presentation in any way to adjust for the new conditions? One could infer that the bass, while attracted to the presentation, weren't as committed as the day before and only bit the tails. And, perhaps, if the bass weren't as committed on day two, maybe the OP was setting the hook at the wrong time and missing the fish as suggested by Catt, or the bait needed to be downsized as proposed by a number of others. I assume the OP's presentation was the same, and he needed to change it to accommodate the bass on day two. But, maybe it is as Catt stated, and the presentation was close enough on day two but he just needed to give the bass more, or less, time with the jig in their mouths before setting the hook. Only experimenting on the water can provide the answer. And while typing this, A-Jay has suggested that maybe some of these fish weren't bass . . . . perhaps the old bluegill tug.

I was going to say the same thing. I've fished a lot of tannic waters that had a few feet of visibility. In my region, 5 feet of visibility is clear water.

Why I am a better teaching angler than you are. (I don't really believe I am the best teacher, but I'll play. ) Finding fish on structure is not a complex differential equation that requires a high degree of intelligence to comprehend. Structure and cover are very simple concepts that, once defined, should be easy for most anyone to understand. Often left unsaid is the fact that learning structure on a large lake takes a lot of work and time, and typically the rewards from this process come later rather than sooner. The process of learning the structure of a lake is not difficult to understand. It is just difficult to execute due to the time involved. Back in the days of Buck Perry, the way to learn structure was to drag lures across the bottom in successive parallel paths, each one deeper than the last, so that the angler could feel and locate points, humps, drains, creek channels, etc. When a nice point or other type of potential bass holding structure was located, a series of paths perpendicular, parallel, and across the structure would be taken to determine its layout. Eventually, this process led to enough knowledge of the bottom to map out the bottom of the lake. Anyone can see that this method took a lot of time and even then, spots on spots could easily be missed. But . . . . it did work and Perry was dubbed the "Father of Structure Fishing." Once depth sounders/fish finders came into vogue, this process was made slightly easier, though the angler could still only see what was under the boat. If you still use one of these depth finders, then you will need to spend a lot of time following a process similar to the old "Buck Perry" process if you truly want to learn your lake. Once you learn quite a bit, you will be able to find and catch fish much faster. If you use side imaging and down imaging, then you have obviously shortened the process of learning the structure on your lake. One can now see out to the side of the boat and get a quicker view of structure. Anything that appears to be a potential spot to hold fish can then be further investigated with down imaging, 2D sonar, or lures. Additionally, an angler can and absolutely should peruse maps and online data about lakes and weather to narrow down probable lake areas for investigation. He or she can then concentrate the investigation process in the areas already chosen, thus decreasing the time needed to find fish. Keep in mind though, that if one chooses the wrong areas for investigation in your pre-trip searches, you may find yourself struggling on the water. Always check the conditions, water, etc when you arrive at the lake so that you can hopefully alter your plan if necessary. As one can surmise, small lakes can be learned pretty quickly. Learning a very large lake is where a lot of time is involved. It is imperative that you do your research on a large lake to narrow your search areas if you want to achieve success in a shorter time period. Keep in mind that knowing the structure of your lake is useless if you are not familiar with how a bass typically uses that structure throughout the seasons. In summary, it doesn't take an intellectually superior human being to be a good angler. It just takes one with a desire to learn, persistence, and the time necessary to apply these ideas on the water. I am not among the best anglers in the world, or anywhere else for that matter. But I can teach you and I believe you will be more likely to absorb what I teach because you will never feel that what I teach requires a special gift or superior intelligence. If you struggle with finding fish, don't be discouraged. You can do this.

I think so too. We could probably say that about 99 percent of the threads.

It matches the spot on the tip of his nose in the last pic. That's a lot of nice smallies! Very, very nice! Sorry, I missed your post previously.

Senko Lover, I agree with the suggestions already presented for cold, muddy water. Do you have any idea what the water temperature currently is in your pond? Was it a cold rain or was it warmer than the current water temperature of the pond?

I'm squatting over your post now.

If a Secchi disk were all that was used for measuring light transmission in marine environments, the "human eyes versus bass eyes" argument would be correct. However, there are other methods for measuring light penetration, water turbidity, and the scattering of light. Photometers detect photons of light, and not what any animal can see. Nephelometry is used to determine turbidity and the scattering of light. I won't create an exhaustive list of tools for light measurement as I don't have the time to research it thoroughly, but the point is, objective penetration measurements of each wavelength can be achieved. Now how that applies to what a bass sees can still be debated, but it is food for thought in my book.

By design, every post any one of us makes on here is not an exhaustively researched, authoritative comment. Our posts would be the length of books if we were to cover everything. I think scaleface made a good post that makes us think, despite the fact that he didn't cover every possible method a bass uses to find its prey.

Nice looking fish!

I agree with A-Jay that there are no rules for colors. I typically use a color that matches the jig head and skirt. The Dirty Craw and Amber Green colors have worked well for me. I've also had luck with Alabama Craw and to a lesser degree, the Falcon Lake color.